Since 1893, when Crawfordsville, Indiana, became one of the first places introduced to James Naismith’s wonderful game, basketball has been a staple of Hoosier existence.

Hoosiers know better than anyone that high school basketball is just different in Indiana and it always has been. No state does it bigger, and certainly no state has ever done it better. And this is especially true when talking about Indiana’s high school basketball gymnasiums.

Indiana is home to 17 of the nation’s 20 largest high school basketball venues, including the six largest, but size is not all that Indiana’s gymnasiums have to offer. Indiana’s high school basketball gymnasiums stand as monuments to honor all Hoosiers’ love for hoops, but also as centerpieces of local communities.

Indiana gymnasiums and their respective communities share a special bond that is difficult to find anywhere else in the country. This is true for every gym from the Chrysler High School Fieldhouse located in the large town of New Castle, Indiana to the Cannelton Community Center in the tiny town of Cannelton, Indiana, population 1,200.